mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

This happens often enough, but there was yet another mini-spat on the board about non-revenue sports and their worth. I may be biased. I love all sports. I've never met an athletic game I didn't fall in love with at one point or another. As a student at UM some friends took me to a volleyball game and I fell in love with volleyball and found myself hitting Elbel as often as possible to pay. Playing innertube waterpolo made me realize what a fun sport that was and subsequently I found myself watching Michigan v. Indiana, not on the Big Ten Network, but in Canham Natatorium.

There's something about those teams, those sports, that reminds me of some the best times of my life - playing high school baseball with my friends, winning a regional, then a state quarterfinal, only to lose in heartbreaking fashion one game later. The pure elation of victory and the pure agony of defeat. There's something pure about non-revenue sports at Michigan. It takes a dedication that I like to think I would have had, but don't know if I would have.

Alex Hunt and Stu Douglass were two of my favorite Michigan Men and Women while I was a student there. They embody this spirit. For those of you who don't feel this way about the Michigan Men and Women who wear the maize and blue in soccer, softball, baseball, wrestling, gymnastics, field hockey, etc., I challenge you to give them a shot. I truly think you're missing out. You're entitled to your opinion, but I highly suggest you read Alex and Stu's journey and maybe you'll see the quality person that UM and UM athletics can produce.

“He wanted to prove to himself and to the world that he could play with the best athletes in the country. He didn’t want anybody to ever say, ‘He was OK at Harvard.’ He would have rather failed at the Big Ten than just be OK at Harvard.”– Stuart’s father, Matt Douglass

Terrific piece by Michigan Daily photographer Marissa McClain. To the surprise of exactly no one, the Daily's sports coverage is better than the Freep's. This is actually a pretty old article from last November but it wasn't featured here before on mgoblog, as far as I could tell. (If it was, my apologies) It was written the week of the Akron Southwest Community Remedial Junior Vocational Preparatory Academy game, so it might've gotten lost in the shuffle of pregame hype. Anyways, enjoy!

While these can tilt either way on a given year, I think that the Michigan one is pretty good. It seems even better when compared to the State one, which may be one of the worst that I've ever read. But don't ask me, see what some State fans are saying: